# Digital Forensic Research Lab The Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is the open-source investigations unit of the Atlantic Council, the Washington foreign-policy think tank. It was founded in 2016 to analyze disinformation around Russia's war in eastern Ukraine. Graham Brookie, a former White House and National Security Council adviser, has directed it since it became a center. Accounts differ on whether Ben Nimmo, who later moved to Graphika, should be called its founder. It names and documents influence operations, and as a founding member of the [[Election Integrity Partnership]] it became one of the main named targets of the "censorship industrial complex" campaign. ## Funding [[Facebook]] announced a partnership with the lab in 2018, with no amount disclosed. The [[Hewlett Foundation]] gave it $50,000 in 2023. The Atlantic Council's own published donor list for 2025 shows the Defense and State departments and the UAE embassy at $1 million or more each, Google at $250,000–499,000, and Meta and Microsoft at $100,000–249,000. Those are gifts to the whole Council, not to the lab specifically. ## Signature work - **[[Secondary Infektion]] (June 22, 2019).** It named the Russian forgery operation, building out from Facebook's May 2019 takedown. - **[[Pravda Network]] (March 12, 2025, with [[CheckFirst]]).** It found 1,907 links to the network across 1,672 Wikipedia pages in 44 languages, and showed chatbots surfacing its content. ## The political fight - **Election Integrity Partnership.** DFRLab was a founding partner, announced July 28, 2020, alongside the [[Stanford Internet Observatory]], the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public and [[Graphika]]. - **House Judiciary report, November 6, 2023.** The committee's weaponization report used a July 31, 2020 Brookie email, obtained by subpoena, to argue the partnership was created "at the request of DHS/CISA." - **Hines v. Stamos.** The Atlantic Council and Brookie were defendants in [[America First Legal]]'s 2023 class action against the partnership. Judge [[Terry Doughty]] dismissed it on July 1, 2026, for lack of standing and jurisdiction. - No direct congressional subpoena to DFRLab itself has been confirmed. ## See Also - [[Election Integrity Partnership]] - [[Stanford Internet Observatory]] - [[Graphika]] - [[Secondary Infektion]] - [[Pravda Network]] - [[Mike Benz]]